


Falling Through the Sky (And Waking Up Completely Fine)

by traitorhero



Category: Assassin's Creed
Genre: Bleeding Effect, F/M, kinkmeme fill
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-12-24
Updated: 2012-12-24
Packaged: 2017-11-22 07:32:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,398
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/607360
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/traitorhero/pseuds/traitorhero
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He had convinced himself that they weren't really there.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling Through the Sky (And Waking Up Completely Fine)

Sometimes he’ll just sit and stare at nothing. At least, that’s what they think. (He doesn’t tell them that in Eagle Vision they’ve all gone red at least once. Lucy has a halo of yellow that has nothing to do with her hair.) The washed out grays in his other sight make it easier to tell when he’s hallucinating. Though at this point he’s not sure if it can be called that anymore. When Ezio comes up and rests a hand on his shoulder, he flinches, and Lucy asks him if something’s the matter. He lies and says that he’s just a bit chilly. (He doesn’t mention the way that Ezio seems to laugh at his comment, or how he can feel his ancestor’s hand against his clothes. That would mean he’s crazy.)

He can’t get away with using Eagle Vision all the time. Sometimes, in the hours where he isn’t in the Animus, Rebecca will ask him to play chess. (He hadn’t known that she played. If he had to guess, Shaun would be the one correcting him when he castled incorrectly.) Or Shaun will ask him about different things in Renaissance Italy. (It’s a relief to actually just talk about random things he’s experienced in the Animus. Like how Leonardo is a happy drunk, or winning a game of chess against Machiavelli.) And sometimes Lucy will just sit with him, a silent companion. (The halo hasn’t gone away. He doesn’t want to think about what that could mean.)

When Ezio starts to appear in the Sanctuary more often, Desmond takes to the rooftops of Monteriggioni. Even with his time limit, he’s happy to see the sky again. When Altair begins to turn up with Ezio, he knows it’s getting worse. The hallucinations speak to him occasionally. Not around him, to other people, but to him specifically. Desmond tries to ignore them. (He listens to their suggestions, however. Like how to land from a three story drop without rolling, courtesy of Altair, or how to do a flip between gaps and still land on his feet, something he’s never seen Ezio do in the Animus.)

The e-mail he reads about him screaming in his sleep makes him realize that the others have noticed his slow descent into madness. The Animus sessions have longer gaps between them, and no more than two a day. Shaun and Rebecca try and talk to him, ask him how he’s doing. Lucy has even begun to talk when they sit together. (Yes, he’s fine. No the machine they’ve continued to stick him isn’t driving him insane, can’t you tell? Sorry, was that in Italian? Why not in Arabic this time? What was the language they spoke? It sounded so familiar.)

Ezio and Altair are common presences around him these days, their faces the first things he sees when he leaves the Animus. If Rebecca notices him leaning on a man who isn’t there, she’s kind enough not to say anything. When he stumbles over to his cot he tries not to notice the glance she sends to Lucy. They couldn’t afford to coddle him anymore, he knew. They had to find the Apple, and he was so close. 

(When he lays his head down Altair strokes his hair, and Ezio tells him stories from his childhood. Desmond feels safe when they stand guard like this, and when he wakes up screaming they sooth him back to sleep, Altair singing a song he once heard outside a Jewish synagogue. Once, when he was too tired and scared to think, he asked what the song was. Luckily, Rebecca had her music on loud enough for him to hear, and she spouts off some artist he’s never heard of. Altair answers after her, and he falls back to sleep.)

When he returns to his old trick of using Eagle Vision to see through his hallucinations, he’s not surprised when they look as solid as anyone else. He leaves the Sanctuary, turning his earpiece off so that Lucy and the others can’t hear what he’ll say. So that they’ll believe that he still has some remnant of sanity left, instead of being Bled through. 

“I’m insane,” he confesses to his ancestors, sitting on the roof of the villa. Ezio chuckles, sitting next to him. Altair stands guard behind them.

“Who says that but you?” Ezio asks. Desmond laughs. He sounds like a broken man to his own ears.

“You’re not really here,” Desmond tells them. “Just ghosts inside my head, brought to life by the Animus. You’re not real.”

“Who is to say that we cannot be?” Altair replies. Desmond just shakes his head and rests it on Ezio’s shoulder. 

When they discover where the Apple is, Altair and Ezio vanish. After leaning on them for so long, Desmond feels their absence like a wound in his side. But his nightly runs through Monteriggioni and their tutelage serve him well as he navigates to the Vault. (It all goes to shit, of course. Nothing can be easy for him. He thinks it might be a sort of recompense for running away all those years ago.)

But he perseveres. He runs through Constantinople, discovers his Synch Nexus. He learns the truth. What has to be done to save the world. And he wakes up. Rebecca and Shaun are more distant now, speaking to him only when he initiates the conversation. His father is no better, but they never talked much anyways. When he begins to relive Haytham, then Connor’s lives, his ancestors appear again. They are not alone.

(She stays out of sight, letting him get used to his insanity again. He thought he might have cured himself using the Synch Nexus. But part of him is glad to see Altair and Ezio again, and to be introduced to Connor. He missed them, in an odd sort of way.)

He confesses to his father that he knew he had to kill Lucy. (He doesn’t tell him about the gold halo, or how she was red for weeks before he killed her.) It’s not only for Bill, but for her as well. (He can see her below him, shadowing him on his climb through the ruin.) When Bill forgives him, or at least tells him that he understands, Desmond looks for her. (She’s behind him, whispering her forgiveness in his ear and asking for his. He readily gives it. They are both pawns in something beyond their control, after all.)

He expects them to vanish when he goes to Abstergo, to disappear like they had when he had gone to the Coliseum. But they follow him, staying with him as he carves a bloody swath through the building. (He knows that Altair does this for the father killed before him as a child, Ezio for his father and brothers, Connor for his mother and his father slain by his own hand.) They correct his form, telling him when someone tries to sneak up on him. (When Cross begins to rant he sees Lucy go up to him, reach her hand into his head and twist.) He leads his father out of the building, their unseen protectors telling him how many enemies were coming, and how best to use the Apple to kill them.

(That night they pile around him, Lucy cradling his head in her lap. Ezio and Altair are silent, but he can feel their satisfaction at saving a father, his father. Connor hums an old tune that Desmond remembers from around the campfires in his village. He sings the words under his breath, not caring if anyone can hear him. His job is almost done.)

And when he stands before the pedestal, it isn’t that hard to choose what he should do. 

(They all agree, even Lucy, that even if they release Juno, eventually the Assassins would win. It would be a long, brutal war, but one that they had fought before. Against Genghis Khan, Altair thinks. Against the poisonous Borgia, Ezio adds. Against any who would stand against freedom, Connor agrees. And when he stands before the pedestal, they stand with him, helping him remain strong against the pain. When it stops, he looks around to see his body on the floor.)

His ancestors embrace him, welcoming him. And Lucy takes his hand as the world dissolves into white, a new beginning for them all.


End file.
